Nonpublic schools have no legal duty to make teachers' files available to the state, parents or other districts

State education investigators have had their eye on Worthington Christian High School teacher
Dwayne Smith for a decade.

They don't remember why they flagged him.

The paper trail that explains Smith's path to the state Office of Professional Conduct is gone.
Ohio law requires the office to purge documents related to undisciplined teachers after two
years.

Now, only a handful of people associated with Worthington Christian Schools know the details of
what happened in 1996 when he was accused of fondling a middle-school girl. Smith did not respond
to requests for comment.

There's no requirement for the schools to refresh the state's memory.

Private and religious schools are supposed to play by the same rules as public schools when a
teacher is accused of wrongdoing, but not all do -- largely because they don't have to.

Private-school personnel records are shielded by law from the public -- even from the state
Education Department, which licenses teachers, coaches and administrators at most of Ohio's private
schools.

After private-school teachers clear the hurdles of criminal background checks, the Education
Department has no right to their information, and neither does the next school down their career
path.

Unlike most public-school teachers, whose licenses are periodically renewed, private educators
never have to return to the state. From the time they are issued, private-school licenses never
expire, giving the state little reason to ask questions.

"It's a system that really sets kids up," said Judi Welsh, a former counselor at Worthington
Christian High School. "It's not about erring on the side of caution."

Worthington Christian school leaders said they did everything right when accusations surfaced
against Smith in 1996. They reported the case to Franklin County Children Services and sent Smith
to Christian counseling. Smith resigned. He never was charged with a crime.

School officials don't apologize for hiring him back two years later.

"We think Dwayne is a great teacher, a great coach. He's an outstanding person to have here,"
said the school's attorney, Daniel R. Swetnam. "We didn't want to arbitrarily throw someone under
the bus."

The loyalty to Smith among Worthington Christian school leaders troubled Welsh so much that she
quit her job there last year.

"I needed to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that there was protocol in place to effectively
handle these situations," she said.

Welsh, who was hired at her alma mater in 2003, found notes written by a former counselor that
detailed an interview with an eighth-grade student. The girl occasionally stayed with Smith and his
wife when her mom was out of town.

The counselor's notes say that Smith approached the girl at night.

"I would act like I was asleep. He would undo my bra, fondle my breasts, kiss all over my face,"
the counselor wrote, apparently quoting the girl's comments.

Smith's sin was so serious that he quit. It was serious enough that he publicly apologized to
the congregation at Grace Brethren, the church affiliated with the school.

Welsh remembered the day in 1996 when Smith asked the Grace Brethren congregation for
forgiveness but did not explain what he had done.

Smith had undergone the Christian "restoration" process that included confession, counseling and
forgiveness.

"There's no dispute that Dwayne acknowledged and confessed his sins," Swetnam said. "We
recognize that all of us are sinners. We're not going to just throw him or anyone else
overboard."

But when Welsh was hired five years later, she started asking questions about Smith. Why was he
coaching girls track? Why did he have girls helping in his classroom?

"Dwayne came and found me," Welsh said. "He answered all my questions. He acknowledged that,
yes, it happened multiple times over a three- to four-week period. He said, 'She had been coming on
to me for a while.' "

The girl, now grown, did not want to revisit the incidents in detail other than to say that she
felt betrayed by the school and by Smith, who at the time was a family friend.

"I sat in front of a whole group of (school) people and told them what happened," the woman
said. (The Dispatch does not name sexual-abuse victims unless they agree to it.) "I was
so embarrassed, I left the school."

Welsh asked school leaders to keep a closer eye on Smith and to craft a policy on how to handle
allegations of misconduct. She asked for a meeting.

When they met in March 2006, Welsh recorded the conversation and, nearly a year later, provided
a copy to
The Dispatch. Worthington Christian officials confirmed the meeting and reiterated
the points made on the recording."We understand that if something happens between Dwayne and a
student, we will be big-time liable," executive pastor Jim Augspurger said on the recording.

"That's a risk we take. I think before God we did the right thing and it may not be the worldly,
may not even be the most prudent thing, but it is something we have done," he said. "We've wiped
the slate clean. I understand the situation it puts us in."

Welsh was stunned by the school's dismissive attitude about Smith's past and the unwillingness
to limit his contact with female students.

"I got tired of hearing, 'Judi, these are godly men. How can you accuse a godly man?'" Welsh
said.

Another counselor, Buzz Inboden, echoed Welsh's concerns and appealed to school officials to
take action.

"They have confused forgiveness and restoration with pretending that once there is confession
and forgiveness, that offenders should be treated as if nothing had ever happened," Inboden wrote
to Augspurger in 2006. Welsh provided a copy of the letter to
The Dispatch. "The problem for the church is not the victim. The problem for the
church is the potential future victims."

Inboden now says he's comfortable that there are proper checks and balances in place for
Smith.

But Welsh said they weren't there when she worked at Worthington Christian. Her conscience
wouldn't allow her to continue her job.

She went public with the story because she wants the culture to change. She wants parents to
know that abuse happens.

"It's not confined to public schools in a bad part of town. In private, Catholic, Christian
schools … people make bad choices," she said. "Parents need to be vigilant with their
children."